The Power of the Wind Youth Guide

Use this web site to guide your own discovery. Are you interested in wind turbines? How to save energy? How to power a cell phone with your own energy of motion? The beginning of your exploration starts here!

Materials Listed by Activity

Master Materials List

Lift a Load - Sample Activity

Chapter 1: How Can We Think Like an Engineer?

Throughout the curriculum, there are engineering concepts introduced by Sue Larson, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. Are you interested in pursuing engineering as a career?

Updates

Updates to pages 26-35 in the Youth Guide

Updates to the Youth Guide Appendices

The Power of the Wind Facilitator Guide

Throughout The Power of the Wind curriculum, you will guide youth to use the engineering design process to find solutions to problems related to wind power. Youth work on teams to analyze problems and find solutions that balance options and constraints. They test what they’ve made to see how it works, then make adjustments and test further, as necessary. Although designed for groups, this project adapts for individual project work with an adult. Throughout the design process, as an adult facilitator, you will cultivate independence and mastery by guiding and asking questions in a caring environment. The challenges are designed to assist youth to learn by doing and apply findings to local community needs.

As you prepare to lead group activities:

Read the activity in the youth guide.

Prepare for a discussion that will generate a large number of ideas.

If time allows, try the activities yourself before you do them with youth.

The Engineering Design Process

The Engineering Design Process found in the Youth Guide is based upon this Engineering Curriculum Framework developed by the State of Massachusetts. Read more about Science, Engineering, and Technology.

This encyclopedia is a large, free, on-line resource aimed at providing accurate information on living in harmony with our planet, particularly with regard to green energy and architecture. It is part of The Worlds of David Darling website and is maintained and updated on a full-time daily basis by the astronomer and author David Darling.

Find information about the Wind for Schools Project, where school wind projects are located across the United States, where you can find higher education or continuing education wind programs, teaching materials, and informational resources.

Wind Powering America: Publications

Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency

The mission of the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project is to promote an energy conscious and educated society by creating effective networks of students, educators, businesses, government, and community leaders to design and deliver objective, multi-sided energy education programs. Find the link to their monthly newsletter, Career Currents, and share the newsletters with youth.

GreenLearning designs premier learning resources for Canada's innovative teachers. Help youth participate in their own learning while gaining a more holistic and hopeful understanding of today's complex energy and environmental issues.

A new condominium residence in Chicago. They are seeking LEED Certification and plan to utilize many green features to provide stylish homes that reduce residents' carbon footprint. Talk with youth about LEED Certification. What do they think it means? In addition, encourage them to think about the engineering design process as it relates to the development of this new condominium.

National Geographic: Wind Power

The Power of the Wind

Into the Wind

This four-part film shows you exciting ways to interact with the wind while learning basic physics. Each section contains an activity you can do yourself (fly a kite, sail a model sailboat, make a pinwheel) and animations explain the physics behind these real-world activities. The lessons lead to examples of other wind technologies such as hang gliding, sailing, windmills, and wind turbine

Into the Wind Facilitator Guide Sheets

These two page facilitator guide sheets provide support for using the Into the Wind videos with youth with special notes about how they can be used with The Power of the Wind. Each of the four Into the Wind short videos focus on a different topic – kites; hang gliders; sailboats and pinwheels and science concepts about the wind. There is a Facilitator Guide sheet written for each topic.

The Power of the Wind Training Guide

The Power of the Wind Training Guide is a series of training activities to be conducted with youth development facilitators to increase their knowledge and skills to effectively lead The Power of the Wind curriculum. It provides a wealth of training experiences and resources to engage youth development professionals (e.g. 4‑H agents/educators) in building the capacity of volunteers in using The Power of the Wind Youth and Facilitator Guides. The training is designed to take place over 10-12 hours during two days to provide extensive time for experiencing curriculum activities, practice and reflection. This combination provides an opportunity to deepen participants’ learning of the content and become familiar with The Power of the Wind curriculum.

The Power of the Wind Training Guide

Activities

Though they were designed and written to be done over two days, each activity may be used to build the knowledge and skills of participants. Click on the activity below and download to determine how and where it might be used.

Examining the Engineering Design Process

Designing a "Better" Pinwheel

Resources, Questions and Action Plan

Closure and Evaluation

Training Modules

Five specific modules have been designed to provide alternatives to the two-day format for those who do not have sufficient time or need to strengthen one aspect of their facilitators' knowledge and skills. There are three 90 minute designs, one three hour and one full day. Each is hands on, experiential and fully participatory. What they do not provide, that is critical to learning how to implement, is the opportunity to practice actually leading activities. This should be considered as training is being designed.

This training provides an opportunity to experience one of the activities out of The Power of the Wind and become more familiar with how the curriculum is organized to best prepare facilitators to pick it up and use it. (90 minutes)

This training provides a deeper understanding of one a key component of The Power of the Wind – the Engineering Design Process. By experiencing two different activities from the curriculum and discussing how the engineering design process is used, participants become better prepared to work with youth using the process. (90 minute)

This training is on the science process skills and their relation to The Power of the Wind curriculum. Each activity in the curriculum identifies specific 4‑H SET Abilities. By participating in this training, 4‑H facilitators will be able to better understand the 30 SET Abilities in terms of the science process skills, and to analyze The Power of the Wind activities for opportunities for using and development learners' science process skills. (90 minute)

This training provides participants opportunities to learn more about how the guide is organized, experience two curriculum activities and become familiar with the engineering design process and to think through how they will be implementing the curriculum and the support and resources they will need. (3 hours)

This training provides participants time to experience three different activities out of the guide; become familiar with how the guide is organized; focus on both the 4‑H SET Checklist, experiential learning process and the engineering design process as components of effectively leading the curriculum and time to work on an action plan.